Nokia N900 internet tablet handset announced

Nokia has confirmed the truth in recent internet rumours by announcing the launch of the ARM-powered Nokia N900.

Running Maemo 5, an open source, Linus-based OS, the claim is that it delivers a "PC-like experience on a handset-sized device".

Nokia has previously used Maemo for its internet tablets, but it's an interesting move from the Finnish company to bring it to the handset market in its Nseries range.

Nokia says the N900 has "evolved" from its previous generation of internet tablets and will let users have "dozens" of application windows open and running simultaneously while using calling features, the touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard.

The Nokia N900 offers an ARM Cortex-A8 processor, up to 1GB of application memory and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration.

The new device offers a "panoramic" 3.5-inch WVGA homescreen that can be fully personalised with favorite shortcuts, widgets and applications.

With a Mozilla-powered browser, the claim is that web pages look the way they would on a computer while online videos and interactive apps get full Adobe Flash 9.4 support.

The Nokia N900 has 32GB of storage, which is expandable up to 48GB via a microSD card and a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Other specs include HSDPA, Wi-Fi and A-GPS.

The Nokia N900 will be available in select markets from October 2009 with an estimated retail price of 500 euros before tax and subsidies.

Pocket-lint will bring you more on this new device from the Nokia World event in early September.